A brief history on my depression

Kids can be the cruelest creatures ever. I for one was a fat kid, and they wouldn’t let me forget that point. I was a nice kid, friendly, overly sensitive, and got hurt because of those said names. I believe that I still carry the scars from those words. At the age of seven, I was ready to end it all, because my self value was so little. This wasn’t the last time my peers would make me feel this way either.

I was a lonely child. Yes, I had some friends, but when you suffer from depression like I have, you tend to feel lonely, even with everyone standing with you. As I said before, I was a fat child, which I would continue, and still continue to struggle with my weight issues. I was also called ugly, and that also messes with the psyche. The worst part of my childhood was that I tried to be like everyone else. I desperately wanted to be one of the popular kids in school so that I wouldn’t get picked on or beat up so much. I look back and I realize that was the biggest mistake of my life.
I lacked in self confidence, and I still do to some point, but my best friend told me to “lie” a bit to gain the confidence that I needed to get through school. Now, keep in mind that by middle school, I did have some friends who were quite popular, and they thought that I had a cool vibe about me, but that wasn’t enough. I suffered from what I now term as the Tony Montana syndrome to where I wanted the world and everything in it. So, I lied, and being a natural talent at acting I built myself a reputation that helped me become popular in high school. Though I wasn’t a pleasant person, I turned into the thing that I hated most, a bully. I bullied some good friends, and I was an asshole to some really great girls. I think that is what I regretted the most, was that I hurt some really good people.
After high school, I moved away from Rapid City, South Dakota, and headed out to sunny California. I decided that I was going to drop the pretend and just be myself, and come to find out, I was pretty popular. Though, depression still hurt. It’s hard to explain to someone who doesn’t suffer from it, but the lying and being popular, and the joking and bullshitting that I personally do, is just a way to cover from the loneliness and to keep my mind from feeling down. From what I’ve seen in the Robin Williams of the world, that is what we do. We make people laugh so they don’t feel like us.
I have good things going for me, I have a decent paying, yet unfulfilling job. I have the most loving and awesome wife in this world, who puts up with the hot mess that comes with being with me. I have the best two kids, who love me more than anything, and a niece who also thinks I’m the best father, she’s ever known. You think that would be enough to keep me satisfied with life, but the truth is I stopped moving forward and I was ready, and able to end my life. I was desperate to get out of the situation I was in; feeling like I had been getting treated crappy from all sides of my life, the kids fighting, a wife who needed to vent and take her anger out on me, ungrateful people that I would have to deal with for the shift that I was working. I didn’t see anyway out, except to end my suffering. Because of that, I took sometime off to deal with my mental wellness. I saw help, and I waited to see what my fate was going to be with my job.
For the seventeen months that I was off, I got to see a Dr., who helped me work out my problems, and show me that there is a better way to handle things, but for the first 6 or so months, I shut myself off from the world and would play the Sims 4 from morning until night, because I really didn’t want to deal with the world. I stopped exercising, because I didn’t care anymore, but I did offer some advice and ended up taking in my wife’s niece in the process.
I remember, just after my episode at work, I saw on Facebook that several people who had known people that I was associated with had gone that step and committed suicide. I felt like the worst person ever. I truly feel the loss in my heart, as my time off was filled with random acts of this loss, and one of those people I had met a few times, and feel the world is at a loss without him here.
(I apologize for the random structure of this blog, but I’m typing as the thoughts come to me, and my heart has been set on doing this for some time)
A bit after a year of my time off, I was informed that I might lose my job, but they were going to give me the chance to change their minds, so that is when I decided to go back to college and get a degree. At this time we were also getting guardianship of our niece, and with all this going on at the same time, I was not stressed out or getting depressed, I felt fine about it.
So, everything has worked out, and I will address this more at a later time, but we’ve got the guardianship, I’ve been in school for about a year, taking digital filmmaking, I’m back at work, with a better attitude about things. Everything is starting to look up. When the time is right, I plan on filming a documentary about depression, because it’s a serious problem and we’ve lost to many good people too it.
For those who suffer depression, and want or need help, I’m here, reach out, I will listen to you, and help the best I can.